


The Barista in the Alexander McQueen

by morepopthanpunk



Series: You Can Call Me Lou [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Barista Harry, Coffee Shops, Drabble, Fluff, Hipster Harry, M/M, Recreational Drug Use, alexander mcqueen shirts, harry drinks tea out of his rainbow mug, hipster cafes, larry au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-28
Updated: 2015-09-28
Packaged: 2018-04-23 19:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4888291
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morepopthanpunk/pseuds/morepopthanpunk





	The Barista in the Alexander McQueen

**Author's Note:**

  * For [paynekinkliam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/paynekinkliam/gifts).



"There's nowhere to get a god damn cup of coffee around here... "

 

Louis can't think, he just needs a shot of caffeine and a dose of nicotine before he can properly start his day; that's all he fucking needs.

 

 

Every coffee shop is closed and Louis wants to slam his head against the wall. He spins around and eyes up the McDonald's across the road, he really doesn't want to go there...

 

 

Louis glares at the cafe across the road that he'd try so hard to ignore. He was so bitter about it, so disgusted by the vinyls on the walls and the messenger bags on the shoulder of everyone who entered and left... who decided that 'vintage-hipster' was a good theme for a bloody cafe? Just give me my coffee and let me read the paper...

  
He begrudgingly crossed the road, almost hoping a car would hit him so he didn't have to listen to the 'alternative' music that they'd insist on playing, or see yet another barista with a beard.

He walked in to be greeted by an overly-smiling young man, holding a newspaper in one hand, and a pen in the other. His shirt was half sheer, and covered in a floral pattern that Louis never thought he'd see a man wear off a runway, but here he was, in a cafe he never wanted to enter either. There was a first for everything, he guessed.  
  
Louis sat at the table by the open window towards the back of the cafe, so he could lean out and watch the highway laced with fog, and watch his smoke dissipate in the air, just so he didn't have to stare at the desperate interior decorating of this cafe.  
  
"Hi, what can I get you?"   
"A coffee... black, strong, no sugar." Louis drawled, barely turning his head. The boy with the sheer shirt never returned, a different one came to deliver his coffee and Louis, between short exhalations of smoke, thanked him quietly.  
Louis was.... mildly concerned, to say the least, maybe it was because he finally satisfied his legal drug craving, and now he was thinking straight. He leaned a bit over the bench and noticed the very same boy leaning against the wall, two hands clutching a rainbow mug that he sipped slowly and surely from.  
Despite the aroma of coffee probably lacing his clothes, he was sipping on a mug of tea and Louis rolled his eyes. Louis wasn't sure if he should go and talk to him or not. There was something about him... something he wanted to know, but at the same time he wasn't sure if it was a risk he wanted to take. 

"Fuck... what am I doing." Louis asked himself for seemingly the millionth time today, as he pushed past the "Staff Only" sign, walked down the stairs and joined the boy leaning against the wall.  
He tilted his head up in a silent greeting and was met with possibly the worst reply anyone could have given him.   
"Smoking's bad for you, you know?"  
"Shoving your head into other people's business ain't gonna do shit for ya either."

"Sorry..." He mumbled, quickly, staring down at his tea once more.

"Nah, don't apologise, just saying..." Louis sent a wink towards the other boy, clearly getting more comfortable than he originally planned on with him. 

"Why are you here, eh? Did you um see something down here? This is for staff only, you know that right? Okay, you um probably know, I'm yeah., just saying...." He started rambling, talking a bit much and clearly more than he wanted to, blushing and running a hand through his hair.  
"I just came here to get a cup of coffee, alright?" and with that, Louis ran up the stairs again, left 10 quid on the table, and walked out.

Louis came back everyday to sit at that window and stare out at the highway- other cafes reopened of course, but he couldn't deny, the coffee made by the guy in the sheer shirt was exactly what Louis needed. Everyday, when he walked down the stairs to begin his break, Louis offered him a cigarette. It could have been Louis' last and he'd still pull it from his lips and hold it out towards the boy, consistently wearing Alexander McQueen shirts Louis wouldn't be caught dead wearing.

"No, I'm good thanks." So polite, so well-spoken, so classily dressed- yet the minute his gaze dropped from Louis', he almost always tripped on the first stair, clinging desperately to the railing, as if forgetting what he was meant to be doing- lost in another world of thought.

Wanna share?" Louis offered, holding out a near empty packet once more to the boy about to take his break.  
He stopped at the top of the stairs, eyebrows furrowed in thought. He licked his lips, almost out of habit, and Louis turned back to his drink- expecting the same answer he'd received everyday for the past few weeks.  
"You know what... yeah, come down with me for a bit." Louis's lips curled into a smile, and he hopped off the bar stool, gripping his lighter and his cup in the same hand.

He followed the boy down the stairs, admiring the way he walked and almost tripped over his boots as he did. There were so many small things that he noticed, so many things that made him different from every other hipster wannabe barista. The way his shoes were such outrageous colors, and the way the light shone through his shirt to highlight some black lines on his chest- probably tattoos.

Louis glanced at the tattoos on his wrist before continuing to follow the boy down the stairs. The two boys leant against the wall, clouds of smoke materialising in front of them in between each phrase they muttered.

"It's Harry..."  
"Louis.... and um, you make a good cup- best in the whole damn town."  
"Thanks Lou... can I call you that..?"  
Louis dropped his cigarette, twisting his shoe over the barely lighted stub to extinguish it fully. "Yeah...yeah you can."


End file.
